magnumalv

"War Memorials" by Clint McCown. He's this completely unknown creative writing prof somewhere in the mid-West, I think, who writes novels as though they were short stories--clean, succinct, beautifully descriptive and clever. I love how every sentence is necessary... not in the Hemingway style of terseness, however, where the economy is almost clinically impersonal... more like Thoreau--simple, but poetic.

"War Memorials" by Clint McCown. He's this completely unknown creative writing prof somewhere in the mid-West, I think, who writes novels as though they were short stories--clean, succinct, beautifully descriptive and clever. I love how every sentence is necessary... not in the Hemingway style of terseness, however, where the economy is almost clinically impersonal... more like Thoreau--simple, but poetic.

maggs

JM Coetzee has been doing this for years. "Disgrace" was clinical yet melodic. But I like McCown's work as well.

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redemption

"War Memorials" by Clint McCown. He's this completely unknown creative writing prof somewhere in the mid-West, I think, who writes novels as though they were short stories--clean, succinct, beautifully descriptive and clever. I love how every sentence is necessary... not in the Hemingway style of terseness, however, where the economy is almost clinically impersonal... more like Thoreau--simple, but poetic.

maggs

JM Coetzee has been doing this for years. "Disgrace" was clinical yet melodic. But I like McCown's work as well.

"War Memorials" by Clint McCown. He's this completely unknown creative writing prof somewhere in the mid-West, I think, who writes novels as though they were short stories--clean, succinct, beautifully descriptive and clever. I love how every sentence is necessary... not in the Hemingway style of terseness, however, where the economy is almost clinically impersonal... more like Thoreau--simple, but poetic.

maggs

JM Coetzee has been doing this for years. "Disgrace" was clinical yet melodic. But I like McCown's work as well.

Coetzee = overrated. Galgut = better: even more concise.

Disagree. Earlier Coetzee, perhaps, but over the last decade, he's been outstanding.

If you didn't like Disgrace, that's understandable: the themes are very specific to the South African situation, even if they do generalize well to humanity as a whole.